"On Monday, India’s remote northeastern state
of Assam saw probably its biggest tragedy in recent memory, when an
overloaded ferry carrying about 300 people sank in the Brahmaputra
river, killing at least 103 people. However, the bigger tragedy
perhaps was the minimal coverage it got in the national media. Apart
from The Hindu, which had the accident as its top story, none of the
leading dailies in the country gave it much coverage beyond a
mention on the front page."

On Monday, India’s remote northeastern state of Assam saw
probably its biggest tragedy in recent memory, when an
overloaded ferry carrying about 300 people sank in the
Brahmaputra river, killing at least 103 people.

However,
the bigger tragedy perhaps was the minimal coverage it got
in the national media. Apart from The Hindu, which had the
accident as its top story, none of the leading dailies in
the country gave it much coverage beyond a mention on the
front page.

Considering that the news first
surfaced at around 6 p.m. on Monday, newspapers had ample time to
give it more space if they so wished before they went to print,
again putting the spotlight on the much-discussed question of
whether the northeast is ignored by the national media.

“Has #Assam ferry tragedy been ignored on Twitter/ television? We’ll
be RTing all responses,” the New York Times tweeted on Tuesday to a
massive response.

What was even more interesting was to see prominent journalists
posting tweets even as news channels kept speculating on a bail plea
for a dentist accused of killing her daughter in New Delhi, and even
more far-fetched speculations on India’s next president.

The recent tragedy is not an isolated instance. The same debate
creeps up every time a major event happens in the remote northeast
region, and the Indian media is accused of not giving it enough
coverage.

Having said that, media organisations also base their coverage on
the potential interest of their viewers and readers, and change
their content according to what is expected to garner the most
attention.

That says something about the majority viewers and readers in the
country as well.